It is the summer of 1687, and a frail, tired old man is walking alongside the Baie des Chaleur near present-day Youghall Beach in Bathurst. At 84, Nicholas Denys has lived far more years than the average lifespan for the time. During those years, he has played a significant role in the settling and development of Acadia, including providing more stability of governance than many of the other royal appointees around him.
Through his writings about the lands and peoples of Acadia, Denys is well known, especially for his Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America, published in two volumes in Paris in 1672. As herring gulls gracefully dart and dive through the soft blue of the afternoon sky, the old man strokes his long white beard and pauses to look out over the water.
In 1632, Nicholas Denys is a 29-year-old merchant in the port of La Rochelle on France’s Atlantic coast, who has just become a representative of the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France. A skilled navigator, he is responsible for recruiting volunteers and fitting out the upcoming expedition to Acadia under Isaac de Razilly. Numbering about 300 men in three vessels, Razilly’s party lands at La Hève, near present-day Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, in September 1632.
As a lieutenant under Razilly, Denys sets about to create settlements and establish fishing communities. So, unfortunately, does Razilly’s cousin, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay. Although d’Aulnay and Denys share similar responsibilities, they do not share the same qualities. Denys is benevolent and kind, d’Aulnay, selfish and mean.
After Razilly dies in 1635, d’Aulnay assumes responsibility for the Compagnie de la Nouvelle‑France and strives to make Denys’s life as difficult as possible. After her husband dies in 1650, Madame d’Aulnay continues to do the same.
In 1653, Denys purchases trading rights to a vast territory that stretches from the Gaspe Peninsula to present-day Canso, Nova Scotia, including all the islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Appointed governor and lieutenant-general of the region soon after, Denys establishes trading posts on Miscou Island and two in present-day Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, they fail, pushing him deep into debt.
Debts plague him, and towards the end of his life, while living in Nipisiguit (Bathurst), Denys writes Description, hoping the book will solve his financial problems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t, but it does provide the world with a record of what Acadia looked like and what life was like in it during the 1600s.
It is storming when Denys first arrives in what is known now as Northumberland Strait. From the shore, the Mi’kmaq watch cautiously as the white‑sailed ship comes closer. From the bow of his ship, Denys wonders what adventures await when they land. So impressed he is with the area’s bounty, he sets up a temporary camp, calling it Cocagne, the French equivalent to the English word Utopia – a fabled land of abundance and comfort.
“Having passed a little island,” Denys writes, “one is well under shelter, and finds water enough. The anchorage is in front of a large meadow which makes a cover of reasonable extent where one is placed in shelter. All my people were so surfeited with game and fish that they wished no more…I have named this river the River of Cocagne, because I found so much with which to make good cheer during the eight days which bad weather obliged me to remain there.”
However, the area around Cocagne is not the only part of the Atlantic coast that impresses Denys. He is so taken with all of it, he tells the king of France that if one quarter as much was spent in Acadia as was spent in Quebec, the king would reap rewards 40 times as great.
In 1688, Nicholas Denys dies, leaving behind a significant legacy. Despite a life filled with adversity, including imprisonment, fires that razed his settlements, and at least six business failures, the one‑time governor of the coasts and islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence never loses faith in Acadia. He remains a powerful symbol of the strength, resiliency and humility of the Acadian People.
“You will,” he said, ”excuse a fisherman. If I had given as much time to study as I have to instructing myself, and to investigating means, for following the Cod,…I should have given you more satisfaction in all this account than I have done.”
